BHA – April Book Club Pick
Book Hoarders Anonymous, BHA for short, is reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle in April. BHA is hosted by Alison at The Cheaper Reader and you can find more information here if you’re curious.
True confession — I finished the book already. 
I’ll be posting a review later in the month but if you want to follow the discussion use this link.
Have you read A Wrinkle in Time? You should.
Review – Anne of Green Gables
This is the first pick for the Book Hoarders Anonymous book club which is hosted by Alison at The Cheap Reader. You can read her review here. There’s a discussion page here if you want to take a look at what others thought of this one.
It’s funny how books that captured your imagination as a child are so very different for you as an adult. I’m not saying Anne of Green Gables was a bad read as an adult but it was so much different than I remember it being. For instance, I don’t remember Anne talking so much. Really, she never shuts up! It’s so endearing though and you come to quickly understand why Matthew and Marilla fell in love with this red-haired orphan. I also remembered the decision as to whether or not Anne would stay was much more drawn out but that could have been how I perceived it as a child. I keep saying as a child because I think the last time I read this book was probably when I was 10.
Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, brother and sister who live on the Green Gables farm in Avonlea on Prince Edward Island, decide to adopt a boy to help out with the farm work since Matthew is getting up in age. Arrangements are made and Matthew leaves to pick up the boy at the train station. He comes home with a red-haired girl who won’t stop talking. Marilla wants to send her back but Matthew has already become attached and sort of nudges Marilla to think about keeping her. Anne, even with her loquacious ways, manages to charm Marilla who decides she can stay. Anne is enchanted with her new home, a new friend, and even her new school. However, she’s not always the proper little girl she should be and gets into several incidents that somehow all manage to work themselves out for the best.
Anne of Green Gables is such a sweet book and pretty funny too. There’s not much that happens in Avonlea that doesn’t get back to Marilla, and Anne, who it must be said is not a bad child in the least, is always doing something that gets talked about. One day it’s flowers in her bonnet, telling ghost stories with her dear friend Diana, or cracking Gilbert Blythe over the head with her writing slate — Marilla hears about it. That’s small town living for you.
Reading this as an adult, I found it a lot funnier than I did as a child. At 10 years-old, Anne was a bit of hero. She was courageous and she stood up for herself. She was a person with guts and she was really smart. I loved all that about her as a child. As an adult, I can see how everything she did was vexing to every adult in her vicinity but it’s also so easy to see how everyone could love her. The kindness and caring stand out to me now but I don’t think I saw that as a child. Now, I’m also amused by the nosy neighbors, the teacher who’s in love with the student, and how parenting styles differ among the women in the story. I’m not saying that to be sexist, but it’s the women in this story that talk about it, not the men.
I’m glad I went back to this as an adult. My appreciation for it is different but all together much the same. Anne of Green Gables will always be a favorite of mine.
Anne of Green Gables
By Lucy Maude Montgomery
GirlieBooks
ISBN: 2940012069979
4 stars
Thoughts – Emma
I didn’t finished Emma this time around either. It seems it’s just not meant to be for me and this particular Austen tome. I’ve tried, more than once, and have never managed to get to the end. Although this time I did get several more chapters in to the book than during any of my other failed attempts at this one.
What keeps stopping me from enjoying this one? It’s Miss Emma Woodhouse herself. She’s the exact opposite of everything I expect a Jane Austen character to be — she’s rich, spoiled, full of self-esteem, is a know-it-all busybody that can’t keep her opinions to herself or stop herself from telling everyone else what to do. Really, I couldn’t take any more of her and gave up.
I know this is supposed to be a funny book about manners and matchmaking gone wrong but I can’t get over the behavior of Emma and the fact she needs to tell everyone else what to do. She’s annoying. She’s mean. She’s ill-mannered. I could go on but I won’t.
Oddly enough, she’s not even the only character I disliked immensely in this book. In fact, I didn’t like any of the characters in this book and found every single one annoying, boring, or some combination thereof. I don’t feel the need to go on because it’s not worth anyone’s time. And, let’s face, now I’m just complaining.
There are readers that love this book. My mom is one of those people — she thinks Emma is funny! Gah! I’ve given it my best and found it still wanting and I will not look back but instead will move on to the ever growing stack of books piling up.
If you want to know more, I find Wikipedia has a nice wrap up. Yes, I read it to find out what happened in this book, and once I knew, I put it down. I didn’t need to be annoying by the intervening chapters.
Emma from The Complete Works of Jane Austen
By Jane Austen
Douglas Editions
BN ID: 2940000816981
Did Not Finish
The Lies of Locke Lamora Read Along – Part 3
Week three of the read along and I feel I should confess something. *she whispers* I finished the book. Tell no one.
Yea, I couldn’t help myself. I’m bad with read alongs especially ones where the book is so good and each section ends on a cliffhanger and I just need to know so I keep on reading telling myself that I’ll stop at the end of the section or maybe just finish off the chapter and put it down and then I don’t. Yea, that.
Thanks to the Little Read Reviewer for organizing and My Awful Reviews for putting together this week’s batch of questions.
Warning: my answers will be short. I’m not going to be the one to put a spoiler out there. As much as I want to I won’t.
1. This section is where we finally get to sneak a peek at the magic in The Gentleman Bastards books. From what we read, what are your initial impressions of the magic Lynch is using? Is there any way that Locke and Company would be able to get around the Bondsmage’s powers?
Initial impression is that the magic is very dark and never used for good. Then again there aren’t many (any?) characters in this book looking to help alleviate any social problems for their fellow brethren so it does fit with the story. I can appreciate that.
I’m confident Locke will come up with a plan to get himself out whatever trouble he’s stepped in but that bondsmage is badass.
2. Not a question, but an area for rampant speculation: If you want to take a stab at who you think the Grey King might be, feel free to do it here.
I have no idea. That’s the best I can do. That is such a crap answer but I won’t say more.
2.5 (since 2 wasn’t really a question) Anyone see the Nazca thing coming? Anyone? Do you think there are more crazy turns like this in store for the book? Would you like to speculate about them here? (yes, yes you would)
NO, not Nazca! Ugh, I was annoyed to see her go. I was looking forward to the supposed dating/marriage thing with Locke. I really wanted to see what they would come up with to get out of it and maybe a date scene thrown in there with the two of them at dinner or something. I think it could have been entertainment to the hilt. But no, he killed her off.
Do I think there are more crazy turns? If he’s willing to axe a character like Nazca, then yep, he’s gonna take a few more crazy turns.
3. When Locke says “Nice bird, arsehole,” I lose it. EVERY TIME. And not just because I have the UK version of the book and the word arsehole is funnier than asshole. Have there been any other places in the books so far where you found yourself laughing out loud, or giggling like a crazy person on the subway?
That one got me too! My husband looked over at me (I said it out load and laughed) and just shook his head. It was awesome. And arsehole is so much funnier.
The corpse stealing scene also had me giggling.
4. By the end of this reading section, have your opinions changed about how clever the Bastards are? Do you still feel like they’re “cleverer than all the rest?” Or have they been decidedly outplayed by the Grey King and his Bondsmage?
I still have faith in the Bastards but I think they’re getting challenged in a whole new way. I’m don’t think they thought of their schemes as life and death — they are supposed to be petty thieves for all anyone knows — even though they could have been killed by Barsavi if he found out what they were hiding. Now it’s more than just a gig to keep up till they can back away. I think Locke still thinks he’s clever enough to get out of it though, or at least rock headed enough to try.
5. I imagine that you’ve probably read ahead, since this was a huge cliffhanger of an ending for the “present” storyline, but I’ll ask this anyway: Where do you see the story going from here, now that the Grey King is thought to be dead?
Yes, I read ahead. No, I will not answer this question because I know the answer.
6. What do you think of the characters Scott Lynch has given us so far? Are they believable? Real? Fleshed out? If not, what are they lacking?
Jean is a favorite of mine. I loved his introduction into the Bastards and of course his beating the crap out of Locke who roundly deserved it. He’s kind with a mean streak and that seems like a perfect combination for a Gentleman Bastard.
7. Now that you’ve seen how clever Chains is about his “apprenticeships,” why do you think he’s doing all of this? Does he have an endgame in sight? Is there a goal he wants them to achieve, or is it something more emotional like revenge?
I think the endgame is a well-rounded thief who can blend in no matter what, hide when necessary, and be capable of pulling on an accent, a cloak, or mannerism that will let him take over a situation when possible and necessary. And I feel I thought that one out too far. Really, Father Chains is a con man and he’s now got his own little roving gang of bandits and he’s training them to be the best possible players they can be.
And, that’s my two cents.
Review – The House I Loved
There are books where the beginning hints at the ending. The House I Loved is one such book but knowing how this one will end is what makes it so special. It builds very slowly and before you know it, you’ve been picked up and carried to the end.
A Parisian widow in mourning for many years, Rose Bazelet still maintains a rather full life on the rue Childebert in the house left to her by her husband. She has her friends and her routines but when the Emperor, Napoleon III, decides to bring Paris into the modern age by destroying what’s considering quaint by her neighborhood’s standards and replacing it with modern and better functioning buildings and facilities, her world comes crashing down. Rose does not want her Paris, the one where memories of her deceased husband and son reside, to be torn down and rebuilt. She takes a stand and makes the decision to fight for her home, her life, and her street. Rose tells everyone she knows that she will not be leaving her family home and nothing, not money or destruction, will make her leave the house she feels she must protect at all costs for the husband she dearly misses.
Hiding in the basement of her home, with frequent visits from Gilbert, a homeless man who has taken to protecting and helping Rose, she writes to her husband. In long letters, and short, she tells him about her fight and how the man at the office treated her as if her home and life meant nothing — and indeed it meant nothing to him all. She reveals long held secrets to him, secrets she has never told another living person. Rose writes about her neighbors that have brought her joy over the years and have kept her company after his death. As the day of destruction nears, her letters become more heart wrenching, sad, and poignant.
I’m the type of person that will read the last page of a book before I start. I love spoilers just that much. The House I Loved was the first book in a very long time where that didn’t happen. I had a feeling I knew how this one was going to end and I don’t say this as a way to ruin this book for anyone. The beauty is really in the letters and memories Rose is telling and reliving for her husband. Some of the memories were lovely — for instance, when she begins her love of reading and how she tells her husband that she now finally understands how he could sit for hours absorbed in a book. A reader would love that! Others are awful, sad memories that only impending change would cause her to reveal.
I don’t want you to think this book is only sad, it is in a way, but it’s also very heartwarming and the picture that de Rosnay paints of this little street in Paris in the 1860s is very vibrant. The parks, the buildings, and the people are alive in Rose’s letters. And while Rose’s world is very small, it feels much grander thanks to the words she writes to her beloved husband. Her description of a neighbor and friend, Alexandrine, a local florist, is wonderful and you can see how close the women are and how much they admire, and need, one another. It’s in these letters about Alexandrine that you catch glimpses of Rose’s relationship with the daughter she never felt close to and you see why she feels so loving toward Alexandrine.
At first I thought of Rose as a stubborn old woman but soon found myself admiring the character for her strength and convictions. To her, the house was more than just simple bricks and mortar. It was her life and the memories that kept her going. She refused to part with it for reasons that only she understood but also out of love for a husband she wanted desperately to feel close to after his death. It’s a love story on more than one level.
The House I Loved
Tatiana de Rosnay
St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: 9780312593308
4 stars
Review – American Gods
Shadow is doing his time in prison but the end is in sight. A few days before his release, he finds out his wife has died in a car accident, and due to her death, he’s being released early. In shock, he heads home to the funeral only to find out his wife died in a precarious situation involving another man. He feels little remorse and decides it’s time for change. He takes a job offer from a man named Mr. Wednesday who needs someone to drive him around and protect him every once in a while. Shadow is a man trying to find himself or just forget everything around him depending on how you want to see it. His employment with Wednesday sets him up to meet a lineup of interesting people challenging Shadow’s beliefs in who and what he is.
The idea that gods were brought to the US, essentially immigrated here with the people that worshiped them, is an interesting one. Once those beliefs, prayers, adoration, whatever you want to call it, are replaced by other things in society — think celebrity — the gods begin to diminish. This imagines what would happen to those gods if everyone stopped believing in them. And, yes, it comes to war, but not the kind of war you’re probably thinking.
Shadow is an interesting character. He’s quiet, thoughtful (at times), and even though he’s done things in his life to land him jail, he’s not a bad person and really does his best to do what he thinks is right. He’s slow on the uptake when it comes to understanding the gods but gets it when necessary. He sort of lumbers through the story but that’s what I liked about him. There was no pressure with him. Everything took place around him and he just accepted and moved on — think blind faith if you will. He never professes to any belief system but he’s able to take them all on individually when he has to. I can see how for some people he’s not a captivating character but that’s what I liked about him. He was the grounding force for all the gods around him.
Now the gods, and they weren’t the only ones to make appearances here, several folk heroes get a bit of honor as well. Gaiman’s portrayal of the gods is interesting and I liked that they had human qualities even if those qualities, and vices, wouldn’t hurt them in the end. I wasn’t able to place every god, some were obscure, but each added something to the story and I didn’t feel any were dropped in for entertainment purposes. That’s something I always appreciate about an author; not everything has to be wrapped up nice and tidy but I want characters to have a purpose.
I read American Gods while taking a writing class and it was the perfect time to read it for me. The elements of storytelling were on full display here and I felt each time I turned a page I learned something new, in addition to being fully entertained. It’s a great piece of storytelling.
American Gods
By Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780062059888
4.5 stars
The Lies of Locke Lamora Read Along – Part 2
We’re in the second week of The Lies of Locke Lamora Read Along. I’m loving the book so far so if things feel a little gushy today, it’s because they are. Since there are no spoilers in this read along, this will be short and to the point. By the way, I love spoilers so you have no idea how hard this is for me. J
More info at the Little Red Reviewer and questions this week were supplied by Dark Cargo.
1 – Do you think Locke can pull off his scheme of playing a Midnighter who is working with Don Salvara to capture the Thorn of Camorr? I mean, he is now playing two roles in this game – and thank goodness for that costume room the Gentleman Bastards have!
First, the costume room is awesome. I so need a closet like that. Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but you get the point.
I have started to wonder how long he plans to keep this one going, but from what I’ve read, Locke has convinced me he can pull it off. And the badge is so cool that if that doesn’t convince anybody what will! I don’t think Locke will do anything to jeopardize the scheme but I think something else might. This is the time when I want to read ahead but I’m not. It’s just a suspicion and as soon as I’m done writing this, I’m back to reading to find out.
2 – Are you digging the detail the author put into the alcoholic drinks in this story?
YES! Does that answer the questions sufficiently? No really, the detail is wonderful. As I said last week, and read on blogs of others participating in the read along, the details make you see Camorr — all its scars and bright spots. It’s just enough for you to picture it clearly but not enough to overwhelm the story. It’s such a fine line and Lynch is amazing me with how he’s walking it.
3 – Who is this mysterious lady Gentleman Bastard Sabetha and what does she mean to Locke?
I wish I knew because the suspense is killing me. From what I can tell though, she’s taken Locke’s heart, ripped it from his chest, stomped on it, ground it to powder under heel of her shoe, and kicked the rest in the water. I could be very wrong about this though.
4 – Are you creeped out over the use of Wraithstone to create Gentled animals as I am?
Yes, although I find the idea of Wraithstone fascinating. It’s back to details though. Camorr is a rough place and would the animals get freaked out and be unusable there is they weren’t gentled? I don’t really want this to sound like an endorsement of this particular use of Wraithstone because I don’t like it at all. Let’s just say I saw the point and appreciated the use of the Wraithstone but I didn’t like it.
5 – I got a kick out of child Locke’s first meeting with Capa Barsavi and his daughter Nazca, which was shortly followed up by the story of Barsavi granting adult Locke permission to court his daughter! Where do you think that will lead? Can you see these two together?
Nazca with her steel heeled boots and drunk — two things you have to love about a child. She’s an amusing character but I particularly liked the description of her as a child. You can picture her running her father’s enterprise too. Let’s face it, she already feels comfortable telling the guards what to do.
I can’t picture Locke and Nazca as a couple. Would they work well together though? Probably, umm, maybe. Locke’s hiding too much from Capa and I’m not so sure he could keep up the game if he really did fall for Nazca. I don’t know how he plans to get out of it though. That will be an interesting scene.
6 – Capa Barsavi is freaked out over rumors of The Grey King and, in fact, us readers are privy to a gruesome torture scene. The Grey King is knocking garristas off left and right. What do you think this means?
I didn’t need to be privy to the torture scene, mostly because I was eating lunch at the time. Uck.
Moving on. I’m looking forward to The Grey King’s appearance. Another dark character with designs on being in charge, bring it on.
7 – In the Interlude: The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse, we learn that Father Chains owes an alchemist a favor, and that favor is a fresh corpse. He sets the boys to figuring out how to provide one, and they can’t ‘create’ the corpse themselves. How did you like Locke’s solution to this conundrum?
This shouldn’t have made me giggle but it did. Locke is really too smart for his own good. In the end, it was a brilliant decision to the problem of obtaining a fresh corpse with minimal damage. However, what about buying one? Too obvious I guess. The extra little scheme was so Locke too. His mind was way too active for a boy that age and way too morbid as well. Then, that’s why I’m enjoying this book so much.
Review – Blood, Bones & Butter
This book has been on my radar for a while but I never quite got around to it for no other reason than I just didn’t. This happens to me sometimes. So, when it arrived in the mail it was fate, I guess.
Gabrielle Hamilton is a chef but not one that’s been classically trained; in fact, you can probably argue that she hasn’t really been trained at all. Her mother, a woman of French decent, instilled in her a love of all food and the ability to cook it. Up until the age of 12, she had an ideal life growing up in a rural area of Pennsylvania punctuated by summer blowout parties and family memories. When her parents decide to divorce, she ends up taking care of herself and finding it not so easy a project. She’s smart but barely finishes high school. She is able to work but can’t seem to hold down a job without getting in trouble. And even though she manages to get into college, she can’t manage to stay there. She takes on catering jobs in all the places she lands, and along the way, realizes this is what she knows, what she can do, and what she wants to do. She wants to feed people and share her food experiences with them.
I was skeptical at first — really the first chapter of this book is setup so sweet that you’re pretty sure she was walking around with rainbows streaming out of her ass. That might sound harsh, but I put this one down a few times only a few pages in wondering exactly what was going on. No one’s life is like that and then it all came to a crashing halt, and not that I felt better, but it felt like a better book. Hamilton is a trained writer, MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan, so she knows the tricks and she used them in that first chapter. My favorite parts were the rougher ones though. When she moves to New York for college she takes a job as a waitress and then gets on the night shift where she finds she can make a ton of money. When she ends up in trouble, legal this time, her brother pulls in a few favors to get her out and you see where all of this might go.
The best parts of this book have to do with her time in Italy. Hamilton marries an Italian professor in need of wife to stay in the country, and for whatever reason, she marries him (there is talk of several girlfriends in this book but her sexuality is not explicitly talked about and I don’t feel the need to address it here either other than note this for the sake of non-confusion) and accompanies him back home to Italy every year. She doesn’t speak the language, doesn’t know his family at all, but manages to find a place in the kitchen and share her love of food with people she doesn’t know but very much wants to. I didn’t necessarily relate to the family issues though; for me it was the food. We went to Italy on our honeymoon and there are still dishes that I remember so fondly, and yes, I’m sure my recollection is cloudy with wine and love but I wanted to go to those places all over again.
Hamilton is a good writer and she’s able to capture something that we all have memories of, in one way or another, and elevate them to something you want to know more about. Yes, I looked up her restaurant in New York to see what was on the menu because I wondered what a writer talking about food was actually cooking.
I don’t read memoirs, generally, but when I do I tend to prefer ones dealing with food because I think I can relate. I’ve never had aspirations of being a chef, and frankly after watching too many food shows, know I would never be able to even think about it. But this book did make think about food differently and the way it’s intertwined with our lives. This book is not always about cooking and food. In some ways, that comes later to this author, but it’s an interesting look in on a life definitely lived.
Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
By Gabrielle Hamilton
Random House
ISBN: 9780812980882
3.5 stars
